Making the fantasy sound real.
Author's Note: I'm not a nurse or a lactation consultant. None of what I say should be construed as medical advice. The purpose of this essay is to use my breastfeeding experience to assist lactation fetish authors in discussing the sexy reality of the fetish. I've nursed three babies. I know what I'm talking about.
It's important to note that no two women are the same, and no two babies are the same. Each nursing experience is different. I am widely generalizing here, but again, I'm not dispensing medical advice. I know that some women never get a "let down" and that hormones and other factors can affect when lactation begins, etc. Keep in mind that my advice comes from my own experience and parenting books, and that my purpose is to help authors write realistically. I'm not trying to titillate the reader; lactation isn't my fetish.
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Producing milk is one of the most womanly things a human body can do. It's the reason a woman has breasts and a man just has nipples. Other than being able to grow another person inside her body, nothing separates woman from man more than this ability to nourish her infant from her own breasts.
And that's only one reason it's sexy.
In the fetish category at Literotica, tags like "milk," "milking," "lactation," "lactating" and others will take the reader to a plethora of stories involving mother's milk. Like any other fetish, some of these stories represent fantasy more than reality, and there are readers seeking the fantasy more than the reality. Other readers crave the down and dirty reality of their fetish. To write for these readers, an author needs the down and dirty. Here is the down and dirty.
1. An author will portray a sexier, more realistic mother if Baby is at least six weeks old.
The first weeks with a new baby are NOT sexy. Mama needs those first six weeks to heal and to establish a nursing relationship with Baby. A story will be much more believable if the author acknowledges that Mama will have stitches, swelling, hemorrhoids, bleeding, etc., and sex is really out of the question during those early weeks. Mama will also be exhausted to a depth that she never imagined was possible, and she might be a little depressed.
She'll also feel fat. That baby bump that was so adorable a couple of weeks ago now looks like ripples of flab. Her breasts will be huge and sore sometimes. The hormone shift after giving birth may have speckled her face with pimples she hasn't had since she was fifteen. Not sexy.
The other thing that many people don't know is that breastfeeding isn't easy at the beginning, even if it's Mama's third baby. It's natural and Baby has that "rooting reflex" that causes him to open his mouth like a baby bird to find Mama's nipple, but it isn't that simple. Newborns don't always "latch" properly. To get a good latch, Baby has to take Mama's nipple and areola into his mouth, and get the proper suction with his tongue. As soon as he gets it, Mama will hear the rhythmic swallowing that lets her know that Baby's getting her milk. If he doesn't get it and continues to suckle, Mama will get a hickey and cracked nipples. Sure the lanolin ointment soothes and protects, but that stuff is disgusting. It's thick and sticky and it stains clothes. Nothing sexy about that.
Breastfeeding is a hormonally controlled system of supply and demand. The more Baby nurses, the more milk Mama produces. When Baby goes through a growth spurt, Mama can start to feel as though Baby is on the boob twenty-four/seven. It gets frustrating when Mama wants to do something non-baby related, like take a shower, for example. After six or so weeks, Mama and Baby are more likely to have a good routine established, and any story in which Mama is turned on by the act of nursing another adult will sound less contrived and sexier.
2. Boobs are confusing body parts.
Girls spend their early years wishing they had boobs. When they finally appear, they are intensely sexual. Boys stare at them. Girls wish they were bigger, more beautiful. It feels good when someone touches them. Intensely sexual.
When a woman becomes a mother, boobs are no longer a fashion accessory to dress up in whatever new style Victoria is peddling this season. They aren't the hot pair of tits that used to attract men. They're not hooters anymore, worthy of winning a wet t-shirt contest.
When Baby is born, they become breasts, Baby's sole source of nourishment for the first three months or so. Mothers talk about their breasts and how the breastfeeding is going. They discuss with perfect strangers how their nipples are feeling, and how well the lanolin works to keep them from cracking. They let the lactation consultant grab their breasts and squeeze their nipples to get Baby to latch. Unless Mama happens to be a porn star or a prostitute, more people will see her breasts in the first three months of Baby's life than in the rest of her life put together.
Add to the mix the fact that the nipple goes into Baby's mouth. Even if Mama's sex partner isn't suckling, Mama can feel a little weird about her partner's saliva being on her nipples. What if Baby needs to be fed in the middle of sex? Mama might feel that she has to clean up first. She boils the binkies, if she's a first-time mother. (By the third child, she'll just blow off the dust and give it back to Baby.) Whether or not any of this concern is rational doesn't matter. A new mother isn't the most rational of all beings.
The bottom line is that breasts become desexualized when a woman is nursing a baby. It's confusing for women and can cause stress in a sexual relationship. If the author wants a lactation story to sound realistic, acknowledge the confusion that Mama feels about her breasts. The story will be hotter for it.
3. Fuck caffeine and alcohol. Put a turbo-shot of oxytocin in the coffee.
